Moving House

 gate into vegie and fruit garden

We are moving. Finally, we have found a house that I think we can live in happily. Phew! Of all the houses we looked at this is the only one I did not walk away from in tears.

Since this is such a pretty little town there are very few rental properties and high demand. The house we have found is a long term rental - the owner has stated he has no intentions of ever living there so we shouldn't find ourselves in the same situation we're in now. 

Our new house is so different from our present one. It is on the other side of the river for a start and further to walk to the shops (I may have to go out and buy that bike I keep telling myself about). It has been designed to be ecologically friendly and passive solar so it should be more comfortable in the really hot weather. Having said that, there is also airconditioning and a gas heater so I suppose we will have to wait and see. There are two bedrooms upstairs whereas now we only have a single level home. There are two loos so there'll be no more hasty exits to make way for Little Tree. It is on a battleaxe block so it is away from the road - not that it is a busy one anyway. According to all reports the neighbours are quiet. I will not miss our domestic violent neighbours, whose arguments Little Tree is starting to mimic.  Or the noise from the public swimming pool close by (lots of loud happy children, aqua aerobic classes with dreadful music, midnight swims by squealing teenagers - you get the picture). The big drawback is that it only has a postage stamp garden, albeit very private, so I'll have to be very inventive in growing herbs and vegies.

 

vegie garden august 2009

There are some things I am heartsore at leaving. I will miss the garden here, my vegie plot, the reserve below us and the trees beyond. All of which has been balm for my soul.  I suppose I'll get used to having less space, at least I hope so, as I don't want to be moving again soon - unless it is to a house we own, then watch just how fast I can move!!!  So I may well have to resort to more visits to the beach and walks in the bush to get my fix of open spaces and trees, respectively. The other thing that I don't particularly like is that there are no doors on the built in wardrobes. It looks very messy and is unhelpful feng shui.  This may be quite deliberate, given the humidity we experience - with greater airflow around garments maybe there will be less mould. Still, I will be investing in some screens to keep me calm.

visitors in the reserve

 

The other big hassle is that our communications carrier no longer can provide service to us. It's a long story about line rentals and new cabling blah blah blah and I won't bore you with it. Suffice to say we have to transfer our phone and broadband to another carrier but keep a dialup arrangement going with our current carrier for 12 months. We may be without both phone and internet (how will I cope without blogsphere?!!!) for a couple of days over the move - thank goodnes for mobile phones.

This all sounds quite melancholy, which in part is true but I am also excited. I will have a lot of fun setting up the new house and rehabilitating the neglected garden, replacing dead herbs and putting in some flowers as well as sorting out where to place all our pot plants, which include a cumquat and a couple of frangipani trees.

We will hire a truck for the day and a number of able bodied friends have volunteered to help. In turn we will reward them with a hearty meal for lunch and a few beers at the end of the day. Not too many for us though since we'll have to go back and clean this house and I really don't fancy doing that with a hangover.

climbing rose in the courtyard

Our landlord sounds unique in that he, quite sensibly, is happy to spend money fixing things sooner rather than later. In addition, he also seems quite open to discussions about any improvements to the property. I am sorry to say that I find I'm reluctant to believe this.

Since starting this post, I've discovered that there is a community garden within walking distance, so maybe my gardening at the new house will be reduced to herbs and flowers.

Now that we know where we are moving to, I have made up a social story for Little Tree about moving with photos of the new house, a map and calendar so we can countdown to moving day. He is very anxious about it at the moment but by the time moving day comes, having read the social story everyday,  hopefully he will know what is going to happen, his role in it and that everything will be alright.

coffee tree

Today we will start the process of sorting and throwing out before we start packing. I can hear the whip being cracked as I write.

Tick, tock

Oh my goodness, time has flown.

The season has changed. Hurrah. Well not officially and I was sure it had turned quite some time ago but now the sun is proving it. (I was trying to capture the sparkle of sunlight through the glass but the camera did not quite get there. I really must learn how to take better photos too.) What a bleak and seemingly long, dark winter it has been. I cannot begin to tell you how my spirits are lifting with the return of the sun. We are having the most beautiful spring weather. Much as we try to squish our Australian climate into the eurocentric idea of four seasons, in reality it just doesn't work that way. It seems to me we have more like 6 and possibly there are more for someone more sensitive.

At the risk of losing vegies to late frosts, I have begun planting vegies, various lettuce, kale, bok choy, silverbeet, spring onions, snow peas and basil, rocket, continental parsley. Next I want to put in some coriander before it warms up too much and it bolts to seed. I have managed to pick 2 strawberries already!!! However further chances of that happening are greatly reduced as a possum seems to have discovered that, clever as thought I was being, lo there are strawbs to be found among the flowers! I have heard him/her growly cursing out there in the evening. Drat. Postscript: Did I say late frosts? We've just had our hottest August day on record. Phew!

Most of all this spring I want to plant lots and lots of colourful flowers. The daughter of the house owners (who lived here before us) had begun to set up the garden along permaculture lines - lots of productive plants but few flowers. We have tried to maintain it as such. In a system where everything hopefully has more than one purpose, I'm not sure that flowers for the sake of flowers are entirely "allowed". But this year I'm putting my foot down - I'm having flowers just to look at and enjoy. They will however bring bees and other predators into the garden so maybe I can get away with it. To this end I have already planted daisies, jump-up-jacks, polyanthus, pansies, primulas and marigolds. I had alreay planted a chinese lantern shrub and white heliotrope. I need to go back to the nursery and part with more money because I've decided that there is still room for more flowers.

Oh, and I have found my singing voice again. Sometime at the end of last year it decided to go. Well, not literally, I could sing but my feelings of joy in doing so had completely vanished and I was beginning to wonder if they would ever return. But here is the sun and after some deep work on old hurts, I feel a toxic cloud has lifted. Having found a new path on which to set my musical feet I am singing again along with the birds who seem to echo my enthusiasm for this season of renewal (If for a somewhat different reason - wink, wink).

Even though it may seem an odd time of the year to begin knitting - that's exactly what I'm doing. While staying with her over the holidays Mum and I went through all her patterns looking for the woollen cape I know she has...somewhere. We didn't find it but I did discover a book by Liz Gemmell called Knitting for your Home which has patterns for knitted floor rugs. We have a sofa - the original fabric is torn (I mean to recover it some day when I'm feeling more courageous about my ability) so we threw a loose cover over it and now with all the rough treatment from the two boys that in turn has torn on the seat part. At the moment I have placed a cot blanket crocheted by Mum for Little Tree but... and now comes the point I'm trying to make - I have taken a pattern from the book and am in the process of knitting up squares that will eventually be sown together and used as a throw. Here is a photo of the first three squares and the fourth in progress. No, unfortunately it is not wool. For ease of washing I have chosen acrylic yarn.